An Excellent Idea
by Dubbers
Summary: Henry has an idea; but Helen isn't going to agree. Thank god for ex-vampires and mostly determined team mates. I suck at summeries. Team fic with a Teslen ending. No other pairings.


**AN : Takes place after Sleepers, but Nikola's still at the Sanctuary; sometime in mid/late winter - which is when I started writing it. Btw, I suck at Geography, so I've made some up :D**

**This one's actually shippy - yay!  
**

**Unbeta'd, I don't own Sanctuary or its characters.  
**

An Excellent Idea**  
**

It was a cold February day and the most recent flurry of snow was starting to melt. Henry looked on forlornly; he liked the snow and the resulting fights that could be had in it, and so was sorry to see it go: it was very doubtful they'd get this much again until next year. Henry sighed, and then looked up, the beginnings of an idea floating in his head. He ran off to fill the others in on his plan.

~~**~~

Kate jumped as Henry barrelled into her room, without knocking of course. She tried to tell him off but the over-excited werewolf just wouldn't shut up, so eventually she decided to humour him.

"Henry, slow down, I have no idea what you're saying!"

Henry took a deep breath and began again. Kate listened, her face quickly taking on an interested expression.

"So?" Henry asked when he had finished. "What do you think?"

"I think…I like it; but Magnus is never gonna agree."

"Why not?"

"Are you kidding? She doesn't let herself, and therefore us, do _anything_ fun!" Kate sighed. "What about Will? Maybe if there are enough of us she'll cave."

Henry looked as if he was about to disagree, then he thought it over. "Good point."

They walked hurriedly to Will's room; but he wasn't there. Instead they found him in the library, researching the many uses of fungi.

Kate quickly explained the plan, not trusting Henry to speak slowly enough.

"She's never going to agree." He sighed.

"That's what I said!" Kate broke in.

"Yeah, but then you said if we got Will on our side she might give in."

"And then I thought about it. Even with all three of us she is one stubborn lady."

Will interrupted; "Aren't you forgetting someone?" He inclined his head to the corner of the room where Bigfoot was dusting; an apron tied around his waist.

The butler looked up, sensing their stares. "Don't mind me."

Henry and Kate shared a guilty look; neither of them had noticed their friend.

"Hey, err, sorry Big Guy, didn't see you there." Henry apologized lamely.

Bigfoot grunted, still cleaning.

"But still," Kate continued with her original point. "Even with the _four _of us, she isn't likely to agree."

"Come on guys! There's no harm in trying. We can just ask _really really _nicely."

"Wait a second Henry…" Will had a thoughtful look on his face. "Why should we tell her exactly what's going on?" He had their attention now. "Yes, she is unlikely to agree if we ask her, but she needs something like this. So we surprise her."

"What do you expect us to so, blindfold her?"

Will sighed at Kate's sarcasm, but she was kind of right.

Henry looked up, still desperately clinging on to hope. "Hey, she trusts us right?"

"Not that much. Even if she did she'd be suspicious; she hasn't lived 150 odd years by trusting people." Will paused before continuing. "But there's got to be someone who could pull this off…"

The trio started thinking. Bigfoot, having heard the whole conversation, didn't take his eyes off the cleaning as he grunted:

"Tesla."

"What?"

"No way!"

Kate and Henry stared open mouthed at the suggestion. Will looked thoughtful.

"Actually, the Big Guy may have a point." At the incredulous looks he received he ploughed on. "Think about it, Nikola has known her for the longest, they've been friends for ages, and Magnus seems quite fond of him."

"Yeah," Kate interrupted. "That all sounds great until you take into account that he's evil."

"And he almost killed her." Henry put in his two cents worth.

Kate turned towards him, puzzled. "When did that happen?"

"Before your time."

She quietly sighed at the not so subtle hint to leave it alone. "So why on earth would she trust him?"

"She doesn't need to."

"Okay, I'm officially confused."

Henry nodded his agreement.

Will sighed. "As long as Nikola can make her think nothing's out of the ordinary we can pull this off."

"So, wait, let me get this straight;" Kate paused. "We're actually gonna trick Magnus into this?"

Will nodded. "She needs time off whether she'll admit it or not, and she won't take any unless we either trick her or force her. I'd rather take the former option."

"Agreed." Henry said, turning round. "Big Guy?"

He received a grunt in reply.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"Fooling the boss it is." Uttered Kate. "Now all we need to do is recruit the mad scientist and we'll be set."

~~**~~

Nikola wasn't quite sure what to think or feel when three hyperactive kids barged into his lab followed by their butler. He settled with being annoyed.

"And just what do you think you're doing?"

Kate and Will visibly gulped: Henry didn't – being a werewolf meant you didn't have to be afraid of cranky ex-vampires with spooky powers.

"We need your help."

Nikola was surprised at the sentence that had just left the boy's mouth. Kate and Will seemed suitably shocked too.

"Henry!" Kate hissed.

"What? We need his help; we're not going to get his help if we don't ask."

"Yeah but…" Kate gave in.

Nikola blinked. "I'm sorry; for a minute there it sounded like you said you needed my help."

Will sighed. "We do."

"And why should I help you?"

Henry butted in. "You don't even know what we need you for yet!"

"Well…I'm going to assume it's not life-threatening or Helen wouldn't let you ask."

"Err..."

Nikola turned to face them. "You haven't asked Helen, have you?"

All three shook their heads. Bigfoot was poking his burette.

"So I'm going to assume that's what you need my help with." He went over and swatted the offending hand away from his equipment.

"Yep."

"Two points: why can't you ask Helen; and what's in it for me?"

Henry gave him his answers. "We don't want you to ask Helen per se, and it'll get you out of this building for a while."

Nikola was looked quizzical. "You don't want me to ask Helen about something?"

"No." Will piped up. "Not really."

"Then what on earth do you need my help for?" He was starting – continuing – to be irritated, and it showed.

Henry told him the plan: Kate knew he wouldn't risk blabbing on with Nikola, even if the man was a mortal now.

When he had finished Nikola just stared. "Wait. You want be to trick Helen into having fun?"

"Basically." Will answered.

Nikola grinned. "You're on."

~~**~~

Helen was busy. She was almost always busy, but today she was particularly busy. So, when Nikola Tesla quite literally jumped into her room and started whining in her ear about how they were out of butter, she got a bit annoyed.

"Nikola! Go away." She had to admit that was unusually blunt for her, but she hadn't slept in at least 30 hours, so she had an excuse.

Nikola frowned. "Somebody's cranky; no wonder we're out of butter."

Helen looked up, puzzled. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Nikola adopted his 'this is me looking innocent' face. "What's what supposed to mean?"

"What you just said!"

"Hmmm…?" Nikola was staring out of the window, obviously not paying attention. Helen sighed, got up, and made her way over to him.

Hands on hips she asked: "Why does my being 'cranky' relate to the butter depletion?"

Nikola turned and backed slowly towards the door. "Nothing; why would you think it did?"

Helen stared as the man darted around the corner. She started after him. "Because you just said so!"

Nikola paused for a moment in the hallway and Helen was able to catch up. "Did I?" he asked. "Oh yeah."

"So?" Nikola had started walking again, just as fast as usual, away from Helen.

"So what?" he asked.

"So what did you mean?" They were in the lift. Nikola pushed one of the buttons: Helen didn't see which one; she was too busy studying Nikola face.

"Oh nothing, nothing at all." He smirked slightly.

"Nikola!"

"Yes Helen?" They arrived and Nikola took the first left, Helen still just about keeping pace with him.

"You're insufferable!" Helen suddenly noticed they were outside, one of her vans parked opposite. Nikola was making a beeline towards it: Helen ran and grabbed his arm, bringing the pesky man to a halt just behind the vehicle. She turned him to face her. "And just where do you think you're going?"

Nikola raised an eyebrow at her. "To get butter." Was his nonchalant reply.

"Nikola, I thought we'd agreed you wouldn't be going out until I'd had a chance to assess your control of these new abilities of yours."

"Oh Helen; it's so stifling in there! I just want to go to the shop and get some butter." His patronising tone did nothing to alleviate Helen's fears.

"Nikola..."

"Helen, please. I'll even give you my permission to shoot me if I get out of control."

His imploring look was met by Helen's firm one. "You know I'd never shoot you."

"You did before."

"That was different; you weren't mortal then. If I shot you now I'd have to try and resuscitate you because your body can no longer survive things like that."

"Mouth to mouth?" grinned Nikola. "I'll make sure to get shot near you more often."

Helen avoided Nikola's gaze, not wanting him to see her painful smile. She suddenly noticed they were in the back of the van. It jerked into motion. She was still holding Nikola's arm – it made her feel safe.

"Who's driving?"

"Tall, hairy guy."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not allowed to drive and _someone_ has to keep an eye on me."

Helen sighed. "Why aren't we taking a car?"

"Because vans are so much cooler." She fixed him with a look. Nikola rolled his eyes and relented. "We need to pick up the children."

"What? Why? They're out?"

"Hmmm, yes. Some disturbance down by the ice-cream shop."

Helen couldn't contain a laugh. "Of course."

There was silence for a minute before Nikola spoke again.

"You think toast is a decent substitute for a meal when you're working."

Helen stared. "I beg your pardon?"

"When you're tired, you generally have lots of work to do. If you're tired and working, you're cranky. When you're busy, you don't bother with meals; you eat buttered toast – don't think I haven't noticed. You haven't slept in at least a day, _ergo_...butter runs out."

Helen continued to stare. The van rumbled to a stop.

"What?" Nikola questioned. "I did actually pay attention when James was spouting all that stuff about the 'powers of deduction'".

Helen was saved from having to make a comment by the back door opening. In poured Henry, Kate and Will, wrapped up in cold-weather clothing; it was pretty cold outside.

"So..." Helen asked, once again suspicious. "How was the ice-cream?"

~~**~~

The four miscreants tried their best not to look suspicious. Judging by Helen's glare they failed.

"There was urrr...a call...and ummm..." Will desperately groped around for an adequate excuse.

"The shop was shut." Kate provided.

The excuse was grasped by four pairs of greedy hands.

"Such a shame," added Nikola. "I really wanted a cornetto." He was starting to wish he'd just kept his big mouth shut and stuck to the plan.

He felt himself wither under Helen's glare. "What's going on?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"Nothing at all."

Various answers; all involving denial emerged from various mouths.

"I can't believe you're keeping things from me!"

Kate bit her lip. "We're not, it's just-" She broke off as her phone started ringing. "Hello? Uh huh. Okay. Thanks for the call. Bye." She put her phone down and looked up; she was met by curious stares all round. Time to start the lies, and hope the others went along with it.

"That was the Big Guy." _I just set my ring tone off._

"What did he say?" enquired Will.

"He says we're almost there." _I'm guessing we're almost there._

"Almost where?" Helen was starting to get worried.

"We might as well tell her guys." _Just play along...I promise it'll be okay._

Henry was shaking his head very un-subtlely, worried for their plan. Will gave her a questioning look. Nikola was playing with his nails, pretending to be uninterested: he at least could tell when someone was trying to dupe him.

"Tell me what?" Helen was most certainly angry now.

Kate took a deep breath, trying to make it look like she was about to reveal a great secret. "Well...we didn't want you to know in case it amounted to nothing, but I picked up some rumours from a contact about a _really_ rare abnormal that's been sighted; we wanted to go see if the stories were true." Kate crossed her fingers and hoped that it had worked.

~~**~~

Henry stared, his eyes widening as realisation dawned. He quickly moved back away the boxes that he'd started inching towards. Unable to hide his grin, he looked down.

From the conversation he was picking up Helen still wasn't buying it, but at least Kate had bought them some more time. Although, now that he thought about it, the last bit of their plan was no longer going to work.

He quickly shuffled over to Will while Nikola and Kate were keeping Helen occupied and informed him of the difficultly.

Will thought the problem over for a bit, before grimacing. "One step at a time Henry, she may figure it out before then."

"Dude, we've got like three minutes!"

"Crap."

"Uh huh."

"Leave it to me." Both men started when Nikola's voice whispered from behind them. He was good at the whole stealth thing, and wasn't above using it to freak people out.

Will looked at him warily. "You sure?"

"Of course." Nikola looked affronted; did they think he couldn't handle Helen or something?

~~**~~

The van rolled to a stop. Nikola watched as Henry, Kate and Will all shuffled closer to the boxes at the back.

Helen looked up at him, suspicious radiating off of her in waves.

"M'lady." Nikola bowed and offered her his hand.

Helen raised an eyebrow. Nikola rolled his eyes and grabbed her hand, pulling her up so she was quite firmly in his personal space, her heart beating ever faster.

"Surprise." He whispered, miraculously producing a pair of ice-skates from behind his back.

Helen stared; her mouth uncharacteristically hanging slightly open. She looked towards the back of the van to see her team, each pulling on their own pairs.

Suddenly the door was flung open, Helen jumped back. Bigfoot was standing in the snow with a big grin on his face, and some altered skates (giant boots with blades stuck into them) firmly on his feet.

Helen couldn't help the smile that alighted on her face as she saw him.

"Surprise!" he grunted.

"Yeah, err, surprise..." supplied Kate as she made her way towards the open door. She took Bigfoot's offered hand and jumped onto the snowy land behind them. Will and Henry each mumbled their own 'surprise's and followed Kate and Bigfoot away from the vehicle.

Nikola sighed: his arm was getting tired from holding Helen's skates up, and she was moving towards the door. He let his arm drop, and picking up his own pair he sat down on the edge of the floor, legs hanging over the side.

Helen quickly dropped down next to him, and took her own boots; all the while carefully studying their surroundings.

It was about four o'clock in the afternoon, so the sun hadn't set yet but the air had that slightly darkened look. She figured they must have driven further up north a little way, as the snow still thickly decorated the area – unless they'd used an Elemental to keep the place cold. There was a small lake which was completely covered in ice, so Helen leant towards the latter option. There were a few small clouds but the sun was shining, casting a warm glow over the landscape. Her team were slowly making their way onto the ice, Kate in the lead.

Nikola nudged her in the ribs; she was taking too long to put her boots on.

Helen nudged him back harder.

"Oww....what was that for?"

Helen smirked and pulled her shoes off. "So, was this your idea?"

"Sadly not; I was approached merely to help with the fine-tuning and execution."

"You make it sound like another of your plots for 'world domination'."

Nikola laughed. "Who says it's not?" He watched as Helen carefully did up the laces of her ice-skates. "I think it was your werewolf's idea."

"Henry?"

"You have more than one?"

Helen gave him a look and Nikola sighed.

"Hurry up; they're having all the fun."

Helen turned her eyes towards the lake; it did indeed seem as her team were enjoying themselves. Kate was laughing as Will tried to get up after falling – again – and Henry was attempting to drag Bigfoot further onto the ice. The monster in question was waving his arms around furiously and trying to get back to the side.

Helen chuckled and finished her bows. She quickly got up and offered Nikola her hand. "Come on then."

Nikola grinned, and put his hand in hers, using it to pull himself up. Neither made any move to pull away from the other; neither wanted too.

They walked hand in hand to the edge of the solid lake, Nikola occasionally taking the lead and tugging Helen along. As they reached the last mounds of snow he turned to her.

"You know I haven't done this for over twenty years?"

Helen hummed in acknowledgement. "Me neither."

Nikola smiled. "There's no railing to hold onto this time Helen."

It was Helen's turn to smile. "Good thing I've got you then."

Helen's railing rolled his eyes and gave a fond sigh. "Come on then, let's get this humiliation over with."

~~**~~

After a few times of landing squarely on his backside Nikola remembered the gist of being able to skate. Helen had had no problems with the ice, but had found herself being pulled over by a disgruntled Nikola more than once. Now they were skating around the serene lake, listening and watching Henry, Kate and Will colliding into each other on a regular basis from afar; Nikola figured there was no point getting too close to a bunch of hyperactive youngsters on a slippery surface.

Helen had the same idea, though her reasons were slightly different. She didn't want to disturb her team when they were obviously having so much fun, and it had been a while since her and Nikola had had any time alone – 'for a proper chat', she tried to convince herself; it had nothing to do with just wanting to be near him. That in mind she made sure that they were skating in the general direction of 'away'.

Nikola was starting to get used to being dragged around by Helen; he didn't see why she was trying to be subtle about it, but he wasn't going to let her know she'd been clocked yet. Besides, he liked how she hadn't let go of his hand yet.

"So..." he broke the comfortable silence. "Shouldn't we be getting back to the others?"

Helen bit her lip; that was the last thing she wanted to do. "They'll be fine without us for a little while."

"They have been fine without us for a _long_ while."

Helen glared, but her heart wasn't in it. "They'll live."

They glided further together for a while longer and the sun started setting. Helen found herself thinking that if this was a movie, a book, or some other type of fantasy world, this would be the scene where the two would-be lovers settled their differences, had a good old kiss and walked off into the sunset.

Nikola's mind was on much the same thing, well, mainly the kissing, but he wasn't looking at the horizon; he was too busy staring at Helen's face. He'd loved her for so long, and he'd thought he'd have forever to get her to love him back; they'd been destined to be with each other. Now, things had changed; not his love for Helen, but how long he could love her for, and how long he even could be with her for. Nikola found himself becoming bitter, thinking of what could have been.

He suddenly realised that they'd stopped, and that Helen was staring back at him, concerned.

"Nikola?" Helen often wandered what was going on in that mind of his; more so at times like these when he was openly staring at her. She wouldn't say it unnerved her, more like made her flustered, though she would never admit it. It was worse when he was unreadable though.

"Hmmm...?"

She took his hands within his, and pulled him slightly closer. "What's wrong?"

Nikola stared: her voice was soft and gentle; she really did care. "Helen I..." he sighed and trailed off. Was he really going to do this again? He looked down, unable to meet her eyes.

"Nikola?" Helen was really worried now; she'd rarely seen her cocky Serbian genius so downtrodden. She let go of his hands and moved them to cup his face, forcing him to look at her. She was shocked to see the emotions suddenly pooled within his eyes.

Nikola could no longer keep it all in with Helen so close, but yet so far away - to borrow an overused cliché. "I thought I'd have forever Helen; not to live, but to get to you. If I had long enough you were bound to come around at some point, I figured you couldn't go more than a couple of hundred years before falling for my charm. Now..."

Although his words were still arrogant and theatrical, Helen could tell he was being completely sincere. "Now what Nikola?" she asked tenderly, still holding him.

"I just don't know Helen." He paused for a bit before suddenly regaining a more normal – for Nikola – demeanour, and decided to dive in head first. "They say you should never kiss before the first date, but what the hell." He quickly reached up, palms to each of Helen's cheeks and pulled her lips to his, funnelling all his pent up emotions into that kiss.

Helen was startled by his actions to say the least, so startled she was unable to think straight for a couple of seconds. By the time she had regained her equilibrium she realised she was kissing him back, and what's more, she didn't want to stop. Suddenly old feelings she had long thought buried combined was the new – everything that had been slowly building up over the years exploding in one great big bang; and it felt _good._

Helen broke away some time later as she began to run out of breath. "Nikola..." she began, before catching his grin and breaking off. She felt her own cheeks rising and quickly pulled her face into a patronising expression – no need to show him just how much that had affected her. "I..." as she faltered again, so did Nikola's expression as he assumed the worst. "Are you asking me out on a date?"

Nikola grinned again in relief. "I believe I am. Is that a yes?"

This time Helen didn't try to hide her smile. "I believe it is."

**~Fin**

**This had got to be the most cheerful thing I've written in ages, I'm so happy! I would really like to know what you thought - concrit welcome.  
**


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